The present invention relates generally to video images, and in particular, to coding multiview video.
Under some multiview video coding techniques, a one-dimensional (1D) array of single-view images can be used to generate target views along a baseline, for example in autostereoscopic display applications. These techniques support a relatively limited number of video applications such as television image viewing by a viewer who can move horizontally along the baseline. In many other applications, however, a viewer may move viewpoints freely in a spatial area or a spatial volume, not necessarily along any baseline. Thus, a 1D array of single-view images may be insufficient to generate target views of viewpoints away from a baseline and to fill in relatively numerous pixels that are to be disoccluded in these target views.
Under light field (LF) based video coding techniques, image based rendering covering target views can be performed with a two-dimensional (2D) array of textures, if sampled views represented in the 2D array of texture images are sufficiently dense. While redundancy among the texture images can be exploited to an extent, it is still difficult to achieve simultaneously high coding efficiency for and random access in the numerous sampled views. Extending the 2D array to a three-dimensional (3D) viewing volume further entails storing many more sampled views (with high redundancy) in very large data stores. Capturing a sufficiently dense set of sampled views could also be very difficult if not impossible in many scenarios.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.